Beating the Boston Red Sox is always a treat for New York Yankees fans, but it was hard for Yankees fans to fully enjoy Friday's victory after watching Anthony Volpe leave the game with an injury after a Walker Buehler pitch hit his left elbow. After not seeing Volpe's name in Saturday's lineup, Yankees fans began panicking. Thankfully, according to what manager Aaron Boone had to say, the Yankees appeared to have dodged a major bullet with this injury.
Volpe isn't playing on Saturday, but was originally in the lineup. Sure, it isn't great that he had to get removed from the starting nine, especially since he has some swelling in his elbow, but the fact that he almost was set to start on Saturday and might be available on Sunday is a good thing.
Ultimately, Volpe could've missed a lot more than one game after getting hit in an unfortunate spot.
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Yankees' Anthony Volpe update is best-case scenario
Volpe's injury was severe enough for him to leave the game a couple of innings after getting hit. It was jarring to see Volpe, a player who has missed a grand total of seven games in his MLB career thus far, leave a game early, and even more jarring to not see his name pencilled into the lineup the next day. To hear that he's fine at the end of the day is great news.
Volpe might not be a superstar, but he's blossoming into a really solid, well-rounded player for the Yankees, and is just 24 years old. This season, he's slashing .237/.316/.429 with seven home runs and 34 RBI. These numbers might not be eye-popping, but his 110 OPS+ shows that he's 10 percent above league-average offensively, and he happens to be a Gold Glove-caliber defender at a premium position as well. He's posted at least 3.3 bWAR in each of his first two seasons, and already has 1.8 bWAR this season.
It goes without saying that a player of Volpe's caliber is important to this Yankees team, especially given their underwhelming infield depth. Oswald Peraza starting at shortstop once in a while isn't the worst thing in the world, but the Yankees would be in a rough spot if he had to play there regularly.
Now, all Yankees fans can do is hope this best-case scenario plays out as Boone hopes, and he's in the lineup either on Sunday or Tuesday when they open their next series.